castellan

Borrowed from Old French castelain (compare modern châtelain), from Latin castellanus (“pertaining to a castle, an occupant of a castle, or a governor of a castle”), from castellum castle, citadel, diminutive of castrum fortified place. See castle and compare chatelaine.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæstən/

castellan (plural castellans)

1. The governor or caretaker of a castle or keep.
   • 1851, Luther Calvin Saxton, Fall of Poland, Volume 2, Charles Scribner, page 442,

     The inferior secular senators are ninety-two, containing the ten crown-officers, and eighty-two castellans. The latter are again divided into thirty-three great castellans, and forty-nine little castellans.

   • 2003, Benno Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations, Verso, page 86,

     Castellans, often exercising control over a few villages and half a dozen small lordships, transformed their banal lordships into quasi-sovereign mini-states, independent of royal or comital sanction or control.

   • 2015, Christine Shaw, Barons and Castellans: The Military Nobility of Renaissance Italy, Koninklijke Brill, page 47,

     The wave of attacks on the castellans in 1511 followed faction-fighting in Udine, in which castellans and their families were massacred by supporters of the Savorgnan.

• castellany
• castellate

• (Rumantsch Grischun) chastellan
• (Sutsilvan) castelàn
• (Puter) chastlaun
• (Vallader) chastlan

From Latin castellānus.

castellan m (plural castellans)

1. (Sursilvan, Surmiran) steward, governor, overseer, sheriff, bailiff, administrator

In a feudal, mediaeval context, this term refers to a local representative of the ruler, who ruled from a fortified castle on his ruler's behalf.